Police search for pregnant North Carolina woman who vanished on due date

Authorities are searching Monday for a pregnant North Carolina woman who disappeared from her home last week on her scheduled delivery date.

Carrie Bradshaw-Crowther, 49, was last seen at 5 a.m. Tuesday at her Salisbury, N.C., home, an hour before a scheduled cesarean section, her daughter, Lauren Lusk, told Fox affiliate WRAL-TV.

Lusk, 26, had flown from Kansas City to her mother's home to help prepare for the birth of the baby, a girl. She said Bradshaw-Crowther was so excited about the baby that she walked around the house singing, according to the station.

On the morning of Tuesday, June 2, Bradshaw-Crowther told Lusk to fill her car up with gas before they made the 40-minute drive to Charlotte for her delivery.

When Lusk returned to the home, the lights in the house were off and her mother was nowhere to be found.

Lusk told WRAL she was away from the home for less than 10 minutes. The doors to the home were unlocked, Lusk said, and the woman's champagne-colored 2001 Mazda MPV van with an expired Kansas tag were gone.

"The longer she was gone – it was 6 o'clock and we were supposed to be at the hospital – that's when I knew there was something to worry about," Lusk told the station.

In a strange twist, Salisbury authorities said they obtained surveillance images of a woman they believe to be Bradshaw-Crowther at a Shell gas station in Statesville on Wednesday.

"She cannot give natural birth and that's why our family is so worried," Lusk said. "If she does go into labor, she won't make it."

Anyone with information on Bradshaw-Crowther's whereabouts is asked to call the Salisbury Police Department at 704-638-5333 or Crime Stoppers at 866-639-5245.